Search giant Yahoo is poised to unveil new technology in the UK which will help travel companies to tailor advertisements to individual customers
TTE: Yahoo! dynamic ad platform to hit UK this quarter
Search giant Yahoo! is poised to unveil new technology in the UK which will help travel companies to tailor advertisements to individual customers.
Smart Ads has been available in the US for some time with some travel advertisers seeing their click through rates increase six-fold.
According to Yahoo! travel category director Tracey Cheffey the dynamic ad generation technology is currently being tested and will be made available to the UK market this quarter.
“We can make changes on the fly, it gives you valuable insight and the call to click on the ad is much stronger. We’re excited about how this could change online marketing budgets.”
The technology is not for everyone however, with Cheffey adding that companies need to have an online advertising spend of about £15,000 a month.
The move comes as travel companies are investing more in online marketing while returns are decreasing as consumers, motivated mainly by price, shop around.
Cheffey went on to say that in some cases customer acquisition costs are hitting £25.
“Advertisers are looking for alternatives, it has reached a plateau. Search marketing budgets are maxed out, click through rates have almost halved since 2004 and the average website loses 95% of traffic.”
Efficient Frontier’s client services director Jonathan Beeston also highlighted the declining returns and said travel advertisers were looking to extend their reach through ‘channels that are not Google.’
“Facebook is becoming a very important channel for some of our travel advertisers and some are spending as much on Facebook as they are on search engine marketing. We don’t see it taking away from SEM at the moment but you have got to expect that might happen.”
